Westeros

HBO has sent out a hot new poster (quite literally) to promote the second season, much in the style of the first official art.

Besides that, the release of the poster coincides with this announcement from HBO regarding the on-line Viewer’s Guide:

At the end of February, I had the privilege of joining international press in a two-day junket to London. The first day featured a screening of the first episode of the new season of Game of Thrones—more on which later, when we’re allowed to say more about it!—and the second day featured several hours of round-table interviews with a number of actors, as well as executive producers David Benioff and Dan Weiss. Those will all be going up apace in the days to come. Of all the interviews, however, one of our personal favorites was the one with veteran, respected actor Charles Dance, who plays Lord Tywin Lannister, the uncompromising, ruthless patriarch of the Lannister clan, and we’ve decided that it was very well suited to leading off the interview.

Having acted for some forty years, Dance had his start with the prestigious Royal Shakespeare Company, and went on to roles in many television and film productions, including parts in The Jewel in the Crown, Bleak House, The Last Action Hero, and Gosford Park. In the interview that follows, Dance discusses his role as Tywin Lannister in some detail, the scale and scope of HBO’s production, and his future legacy as an actor.

Read the interview!

The editor of Game of Thrones and Philosophy (Order: US Paperback, US Kindle, UK), Professor Henry O. Jacoby, will be interviewed on the Secret Lives of Men at 3PM Eastern—that’s about an hour from now—concerning the book and the source material that’s inspired its essays from a number of philosophers.

If you miss the interview, it should be in their archive shortly afterward… and while you’re waiting, here’s our own interview with Professor Jacoby regarding the book, for which we were honored to provide the foreword.

HBO has been generous with the character profiles, and has now placed Robb Stark and Stannis Baratheon profiles out on Youtube. They contain quite a bit of new stuff—including a great look at Oona Chaplin as Jeyne of No Last Name and Lucian Msamati as Salladhor Saan:

Last night HBO premiered a brand new trailer on its channel, but they’ve very kindly made it available on HBO.com. Titled “Price For Our Sins”—not our favorite line revealed from trailers thus far, we must say—it largely features images we’ve seen before, but there’s a handful of new shots to get excited about.

Besides that, we’ve forgotten to note that the Making Game of Thrones website has a great little feature on the weapons of the show, featuring the weaponmaster Tommy Dunne. Some really amazing swords and their accoutrements this season, beautifully crafted. Lightbringer and Hearteater are especially impressive!

TIFF has posted the very last part of the “In Conversation” interview with GRRM, at its Youtube channel. And for fans of the novels, this one’s particularly cool—the last nine minutes feature his reading a short excerpt from a The Winds of Winter chapter! Definite spoilers for those who’ve not yet read all five novels in the series:

Yesterday, the news rolled in that Game of Thrones had secured the #2 overall sales spot for DVD and Bluray sales according to Nielsen VideoScan, registering about 78% of the sales of another newcomer, the film Immortals and well ahead of last week’s top sellers, Puss in Boots and Hugo. 57% of sales were in the Bluray edition, as well, which is an enormous figure for a television series.

Now Yahoo.au was among the first to post this Reuters report, which states:

On top of that, the show is said to have, “set an HBO series record for sales of digital downloads from outlets such as iTunesapple, the network said, but it did not provide figures.”

As promised, HBO Canada and TIFF have posted the “In Conversation” with George R.R. Martin, hosted by Teri Hart. Looking at it, it looks to just be the first part of the interview, but there’s definitely plenty to watch as Hart and Martin discuss his work, his fans, and the television show. You can see it below:

Other interviews, and reports about the full “In Conversation” interview, can be found at the March section of the So Spake Martin collection.

First up in EW’s big Game of Thrones coverage? An interview with the lovely Emilia Clarke regarding the second season of the show.

Among the topics discussed is the challenge of working with dragons, the changes from book to screen (“slight different” she says), and the popularity of the show, its fans, and whether she’s getting recognized. I do believe she’s mentioned getting a free yogurt before thanks to the role, so that’s something.

Remember, this month’s issue of Entertainment Weekly comes with four different Game of Thrones covers. Inside, there’ll be more cast interviews and exclusive photos, some of which EW.com has shared. Featuring Peter Dinklage, Lena Headey, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Daenerys Targaryen, and Kit Harington, the pictures range from the hilarious rocking-out cast members to a tender Cersei and Jaime moment. And wait, there’s more: an additional gallery of behind-the-scenes photos, covering a number of actors, including young Callum Wharry (Tommen) and Aimee Richardson (Myrcella).

Or vice versa, perhaps! It looks like Entertainment Weekly has some major coverage coming this way in the coming days, both on-line and in print, with not one, not two, not three, but four collectible covers featuring Emilia Clarke, Kit Harington, Peter Dinklage, Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, and Lena Headey.

And speaking of them… don’t miss this shot from the cast photoshoot in Belfast. Hilarious.

At the article, James Hibberd already brings a bit of news regarding budgets and effects for direwolves and dragons—go over there to check them out. There’s one bit that caught my eye, however:

We mentioned yesterday that GRRM was going to appear on the CBC’s George Stroumboulopoulos Hour, and to keep an eye out on the official site for the online video. But the show’s producers went the extra mile and posted the full, extended interview on Youtube. We’ve added it to the So Spake Martin collection, along with links to reports and interviews from the TIFF “In Conversation” and other media appearances by GRRM, but you can see it embedded below:

And for those of you in Canada? HBO Canada has the “In Conversation” video up already, and posted here, but it’s region-locked for Canadians only (for now—TIFF.net plans to post it on their Youtube channel next week).

I heard a rumor that this existed…

And now it’s out for everyone to see. To promote the second season of Game of Thrones (mark your calendars: April 1st in the U.S. and Latin America, April 2nd in the U.K.), HBO‘s released a gruesome new poster… and it’s a big spoiler, so if you don’t know anything about the series or have just started watching, don’t look. For those who want to get a closer look, on the other hand, make sure to visit Wondercon this weekend, where you’ll be able to get a photo taken and have yourself inserted into the picture.

You’ll see what I mean by that, below the cut:

Atlus USA has provided a sneak peek of the combat system used for the Game of Thrones RPG being created by Cyanide Studios, due May 15th: (Pre-order: Amazon US Xbox, Amazon US PS3). It gives a look at both the class and leveling system, and a more detailed look at their combat mechanics which enter a “bullet-time” like mode whenever selecting options or issuing commands, rather than fully stopping the action.

Built using the Unreal 3 engine, the game follows two characters—Mors Westford and Alester Sarwyck—in a campaign that starts just before the first novel, taking them to various locations including the westerlands, the riverlands, King’s Landing, and the Wall. For more information, check out our most recent post which links to the Podcast of Ice and Fire’s recent interview with two members of Atlus.

Access Hollywood had a great interview with Tom Wlaschiha recently… and now they’ve gone and gotten us our very first look at him in costume (and wig!) for his role as Jaqen H’ghar, that international man of mystery who plays an important role in Arya’s story this season.

Jaqen indicates he comes from the Free City of Lorath, which in some ways is the remotest of the Free Cities, and we know very little about them… but we do learn a bit about him, as the books progress, and suffice it to say many fans of the novels are looking forward to seeing how he translates to the screen.

Access Hollywood promises to have an interview with Maisie Williams up tomorrow, but their article with the photo excerpts a brief bit touching on her first meeting Tom and figuring out who he was playing.

Quite a few interviews with George these last couple of days, thanks to his visit to Toronto, courtesy of HBO Canada and Random House. Yesterday, of course, was the Teri Hart-hosted “In Conversation” with George, sponsored by TIFF, and that’s led to a couple of reports (and there’s the promise of a video from the event, to be posted some time next week). Both reports from the invent join two other interviews with the CBC’s Canada AM morning news program and the Q radio program. The Q program is particularly interesting, with some great questions.

You can find the reports from “In Conversation”, plus links or embeds of the CBC items, over at the So Spake Martin entry for March.

Also, for Canadians, George will also be appearing on television tonight, on the George Stroumboulopoulos Tonight program. That should be online tomorrow at the latest, by the looks of it, at the show’s online video page.